Noetic Design, Inc. Release Notes
WheelCommander WC-132 Application Software
August 25, 2009
Release 1.172
Firmware rev 41
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Release History
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August 25, 2009:
1. fix default baud in Wizard to match firmware.
2. fix bugs related to handling multiple WC-132 devices and selecting
among them in the Wizard.
3. fix tool tips in drive dialog -- the values for delta velocity and
direction did not match.
4. new rev of manual with fixes to default mode and clarification of short mode,
as well as fixes a number of typographical errors.
5. released
August 3, 2009:
1. re-enabled firmware updating
2. updated msvcr90.dll, mfc90.dll, and associated manifests to match
wcwizard
3. rebuilt and repackaged to fix installation issue
August 1, 2009:
1. Fixed bugs in handling of mode changes, including short mode and
slow comms.
2. Wizard now generates a log of activity and saves it to a file in the
current working directory.
3. Includes beta 41 of firmware, which addresses the red LED not turning off
problem when a coast is issued, and fixes a hang that can occur in I2C mode
when performing analog reads during a movement.
4. Fix a bug in WriteDIO handler in DLL, which resulted in not requesting the
Ack, which would cause a subsequent command to fail.
5. We can now detect a WheelCommander from the Wizard that has interchar delay
and/or short comms turned on; prior to this, selecting either special mode
would break the Wizard on a subsequent search.
March 10, 2009:
1. This release includes firmware revision 40, which has major improvements
to the behavior of the system when mixing angle and distance movements.
They are now properly mixed such that controlled arcs can be executed;
prior to this, the angular motion was not spread evenly across the length
of a distance movement, but rather took place mostly at the end of the
move, resulting in an unpredictable J-shaped curve. Now, a movement
of length D and angle W results in an arc that subtends W degrees with
a radius of curvature of D * 360 / (W * 2 * pi); the distance travelled
along the curve is D. Similar improvements have been made to velocity
and rotation rate control.
2. The firmware and wizard include bug fixes for swapping of odometry
information for the two wheels.
3. Fixes issues with changing the wheel parameters, and the loss of
changes if one hits Refresh.
4. Includes an updated Wizard User's Manual (fixed a typo on page 12).
5. Includes an expanded Product Manual, including a new section on
kinematics, a new diagram about relative vs. absolute movements, and
new diagrams explaining the design of the various PID loops.
March 2, 2009:
This is another minor update. It improves the behavior of the first
wizard dialog page to only allow changes to baud rate and BlueRadios
settings when a port has been selected, and includes the latest changes
to the DLLs. Finally, it installs a draft of the Wizard User's Manual.
February 18, 2009:
This is a minor update. It adds a command line utility, WCLoader.exe,
which provides the ability to recover from failed firmware updates
using the ClearEEPROM jumper.
To recover from failed firmware updates:
1. turn off the power to the WC-132
2. set the jumper to short pins 1 and 2
3. power on the WC-132
4. then issue:
> WCLoader /fwc-132_beta_39.bin /b4 /v /e
When it finishes, be sure to move the jumper back to pins 2 and 3.
This will create wcloader.log; please email this to us if you are having
trouble.
February 16, 2009:
This is now a release build rather than debug build of the product.
If we installed the debug version of the Microsoft VC 9.0 DLLs, they
will be removed. This release fixes bugs 2 and 4.
February 11, 2009:
This release fixes bugs 3 and 6, and adds a Relative Move checkbox
to the position tuning dialog; it also updates the manual to document
the Query Interrupt command.
February 10, 2009:
This release adds DLLs that were missing from the February 8 release.
February 8, 2009:
First release of beta 1.10.